Pressure mounts on King Charles as family of ex-PM apologises for slave-owning past

The descendants of former British prime minister William Gladstone apologized for their family´s slaveholding past in Guyana on Friday and urged the United Kingdom to discuss reparations in the Caribbean.

Gladstone´s father was one of the largest slaveholders in the parts of the Caribbean colonized by Britain.

John Gladstone is also believed to have owned two ships that transported thousands of Asians from India and elsewhere to work as indentured laborers after the abolition of slavery in 1834.

"Slavery was a crime against humanity and its damaging impact continues to be felt across the world today," Charles Gladstone, William´s great-great grandson, said at a launch for the University of Guyana´s International Centre for the Study of Migration and Diaspora.

"It is with deep shame and regret that we acknowledge our ancestor´s involvement in this crime and with heartfelt sincerity that we apologize to the descendants of the enslaved in Guyana," he added.

"We also urge other descendants of those who benefited from slavery to open conversations about their ancestors' crimes and what they might be able to do to build a better future."

The Gladstones also apologized for their role in indentureship.

In April, King Charles gave his support to research that will examine the British monarchy's links to slavery after a newspaper report said a document showed a historical connection with a transatlantic slave trader.

The Guardian said an archive document discovered by historian Brooke Newman showed that in 1689 King William III had been given 1,000 pounds of shares in the Royal African Company (RAC) which was involved in the transportation of thousands of slaves from Africa to the Americas.

The recently discovered document was signed by Edward Colston, a slave trade magnate whose history became widely known after protesters pulled down a statue to him in Bristol, southwest England, and threw it in the harbour during 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.

The issue of the British Empire's slavery links and calls for possible reparations from the monarchy has been growing in the Caribbean where Charles remains head of state of a number of countries including Jamaica and the Bahamas.